Chapter 8
Jeltom
I could not shake a sense of unease that settled over me during the next few days.
I worked hard to fix everything I could around Mariska’s small homestead.
I worked so hard that I fell into a deep sleep each night inside the barn.
Part of my unease came from the daily stirring of a dependency I was developing on Mariska’s presence.
It was worse in the morning, and as achy as I felt being apart from her, it was clearly tougher on her human body.
She was so happy each day to see me, but I couldn’t help but worry that she was getting sick.
She was pale, wan in the face, with deep circles under her eyes, and she had lost that powerful drive to work alongside me day by day.
Her energy flagged by mid-morning, so she’d retreat to her home to do smaller tasks there.
I wanted to call Danitalin again to ask her what could be ailing her, and had already taken furtive readings with my hand scanner to try to figure it out myself.
Somehow, that felt too much like breaching Mariska’s trust, so I hadn’t yet.
If this continued, I would have no choice but to involve others.
I wasn’t a doctor, though I had a very strong base in chemistry.
As an assistant to Danitalin’s research before, I’d worked with chemical preparations.
My strength lay in balancing things—like Mariska’s first batch of wine that had turned to vinegar.
Restoring that drink to something actually tasty had been a challenge I worked on each evening before sleep, and I was getting close to solving it.
Then there was the news that Avertom had brought me the night he’d carried my deliveries up to Mariska’s farm.
“There’s a strange female asking for you in town.
She says she has important news to discuss with you.
I told her to call your comm, but she did not have your contact.
” I should have gone into town to figure out who could be asking after me, except I had been unable to bring myself to leave Mariska’s farm.
I was certain that whoever it was, they were no friend—though Avertom had not sensed any malice and had called me a lucky fiend for having two pretty females to court right now.
That was the third issue. Tomorrow was this Valentine thing, and though I’d studied everything Danitalin had passed onto me thoroughly, I was certain I was going to get it all wrong.
It was still pretty impossible for me to believe that sweet-smelling and deliciously curvy Mariska wanted me that way.
One moment kept playing over and over in my head: that one evening after I’d installed her locks, when she’d told me she trusted me. How had I earned her trust so easily? I had been so certain it was a much harder task than it had turned out to be.
I touched my arms and wondered if I was imagining the increased muscle mass or if I really had been packing it on since I’d thrown myself headfirst into all this farm work.
Could be, but usually, it took a bit longer to develop, didn’t it?
I felt stronger, though my skin was hypersensitive.
My mind immediately circled back to Mariska’s flagging health, and my worry spiked.
I left the barn to find her; she was probably in the kitchen prepping food.
We’d settled into a comfortable rhythm over the past few days, and I was certain she knew I was sleeping in the barn, though she never mentioned it.
The extra help was making a huge difference, and yesterday I’d gotten the automatic fence repair bots online.
They hummed in the distance as they worked, repairing large swaths of fence at a speed neither Mariska nor I could keep up with.
I was about to head inside to join her for the evening meal when a different sound caught my attention.
I checked my comm, then the sensors I’d set up along the perimeter.
One had been tripped, and I frowned at its location.
There were no large predators to worry about out here, so this had to be a trespasser of the two-legged variety.
It wasn’t near the path, so whoever this was had stealth on their mind, that meant they were up to no good.
Mariska found me a few moments later in the barn, yanking clothes out of my backpack and shoving the bedroll aside so I could locate my laser pistol.
Even I had grown complacent on Llykhe, especially back in my hometown, where nothing ever happened.
I was glad I had the gun now, though, and strapped it with a practiced move to my leg.
Securing a knife on my other thigh, I was not surprised to hear her gentle observation: “You were a soldier once, weren’t you? Is that how you got shot?”
I looked at her over my shoulder, words rising in my throat that I struggled to get out, let alone order into a coherent sentence.
The alert on my comm reminded me that there was a much more pressing issue.
Someone was trying to sneak onto her land for some reason, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t some youngsters looking for a bit of fun.
Too many Lemane flowers in the hills made this location anything but ideal for partygoers.
“Later,” I said to Mariska instead. “You’ve got an intruder to the south.
” Then I took her by the arm and urged her from the barn with me.
“Do you know how to turn the shield on?” She nodded, so I gave her a mild push in the direction of the shield generator just outside her home.
“Do it. It should be able to run for a short while.” It was a shield designed to form an impenetrable dome over the entire property.
Meteors would burn up in the field, and anything alive would be crazy to try to pass through.
If we were lucky, the shield would trap whoever was trespassing in here with us, and I’d have some answers.
Mariska did not ask any questions, but raced for the generator, her eyes huge in her face and the dark circles beneath them terrifyingly pronounced.
I was afraid she’d keel over from exhaustion, and certain she wasn’t sleeping at all.
Taking steps away from her and the humming generator as it powered up felt wrong, but it had to be done.
I broke into a jog as I passed the stone farmhouse with its crooked chimney, then silently raced for the south edge of her property.
Long rows of thick trunks and ancient vines marched along the vineyard.
It was the only thing Meteor Crater had going for it.
Its vines were strong and healthy and ready to produce for many years to come in the right hands.
The grooves in the dirt between each line were worn and sandy, evidence that the soil needed enrichment.
Tonight, that rough, dry ground helped me cross the distance on silent feet.
The generator pulled a shield out of thin air with effort.
It crackled across the sky like broken eggshells, bleeding like ink into solid spots until the field closed.
If my trespasser had been close to the border, they could have made it through.
That same shield would then block me from tracking them down.
Not that I would; there was no way I’d leave Mariska on her own that long—not when she appeared so sick tonight.
What was causing it? And why was it accompanied by changes in my own body, and a soreness of my skin that made me think I might be sick too?
I heard the whisper of a voice, sensed more than saw the shape of someone to my left.
Slowly, I pivoted and drew my pistol, the weight of it familiar in my hand.
This was as familiar to me as playing with chemicals in the barn.
I was a soldier at heart, a warrior, a male built to withstand the darkness of war and violence.
Not kind, not empathic, but strong and fearless.
It was a Kertinal, but he’d muted his natural bioluminescent glow to stay hidden in the dark.
I saw only the dark shape of him hunched between the ancient vines, his horns rising in spirals above his head.
There was a bigger shape next to him, but my eyes did not make out what he was until he shifted, and the blunt Rhico snout and jutting nose horn were silhouetted in the faint light of the moon behind them.
The pair of them were a combination that only made sense in a handful of situations.
They were probably mercenaries for the same outfit, hired to come here and do a job.
Or they might be pawns for a criminal organization of some kind—like a crimelord.
My mind flashed to the news Avertom had brought about a pretty Aderian female looking for me in town.
Then I recalled the hostage situation back on Radin barely two months ago.
How a Kertinal mercenary had held Danitalin and the rest of the team under threat of death, on the orders of a single, very dangerous crimelord.
Koratalin had tried to take our cure from us and use it for her own gain, and she hadn’t been bothered by stepping over a few corpses to get what she wanted.
She’d failed, but if there was anyone with an ax to grind, it was her.
Could it be? It made little sense that she would try to go after me when I could neither help her with the cure nor had been the cause of her defeat.
I’d just been the poor sod who’d gotten shot.
Then again, I was one of the few people Danitalin called friend, and the nasty crimelady would definitely want to get back to her.
Reaching her aboard a ship as notorious as the Varakartoom was impossible, so perhaps she was here for me.
So it could be my fault that danger had come to Mariska’s doorstep.
I swore under my breath and watched the pair of strangers as they huddled by the vines.
What was their purpose? To scout, vandalize, harm?
Fury mounted in my veins at the thought that either of them would so much as lay eyes on Mariska. I would not let that happen.
Silent as a wrath, I circled their position, searching the dark for any sign that they might not be alone.
When I was certain it was just the two of them, and they knew they had been trapped by the shield, I moved in, shooting one in the leg and knocking the other out with a sharp blow to the neck.
I had them tied up and disarmed in no time, some things you just never forgot.
Taking down an enemy with stealth appeared to be one of them.
“Who sent you? Why are you here?” I demanded of the Kertinal whose leg I’d shot out at the knee.
He wasn’t going to be walking out of here, and from the resigned look on his black-and-purple face, it was obvious he knew it.
Just as obvious was his reluctance to talk, so whoever had sent him here, they were dangerous.
Dangerous the way a crimelord was, perhaps.
“Talk,” I said again, and without an ounce of compassion, kicked him in the wounded leg.
He howled in pain, followed by a snarl that was deep and dual-layered; subharmonics dancing through the air.
“Bastard! You’ll get us killed!” he said, which only confirmed my suspicions that whoever held his strings was bad—Koratalin bad, perhaps—and I needed to know. Mariska would continue to be in danger if I did not get to the bottom of this, and that I couldn’t allow.
“You don’t need to answer; you just need to nod if I’m right.
Then I’ll let you both go.” The Kertinal shrugged, his glare fierce but his scowl silent, he had no choice.
“Koratalin,” I said, and was pleased to see the quick surprise on the male’s face.
So I was right, but he hadn’t expected me to realize who was after me.
It still made little sense, except as a way to harm Danitalin’s soft heart.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go tell my partner to turn the shield back off.
Next time you’re on my land, I’ll shoot to kill.
Understand?” I aimed my pistol and, for emphasis, shot the bastard in the foot too.
He howled, furious and in pain, but his nod of confirmation was immediate.
He’d do as I suggested, but I wouldn’t rest easy until I knew they were gone.
Mariska was waiting by the shield generator, but she had gone into her home and fetched a small, sturdy gun of her own.
It looked old and rather clunky, but it would do the trick when needed.
She was clearly trying to be brave, her feet planted in the dusty yard and both hands folded around the weapon.
When she saw me, her relief was so obvious—so immediate—that she sagged, her hands trembling as she lowered the weapon.
“Oh, thank God, you’re all right. I heard laser fire, I was so worried you’d gotten shot!
” Again, that word hung in the air between us, or maybe that was just in my head.
She swayed, and I quickly took the weapon from her.
Then I turned off the shield generator. Glancing back at where she stood, she still remained unsteady, clinging with a hand to the porch railing.
I swept her into my arms and cradled her against my chest. I definitely didn’t feel old or like a male still recovering from a near-fatal wound then—not when I carried her into her house and she clung to my shirt with shaking hands.
“I just have the flu or something,” she muttered, her eyelashes drooping.
“I’m sorry, Jeltom. What happened? I’ll try to focus.
” She clearly had trouble with it, though, and my alarm was spiking hard and fast. Something was wrong, and not just because a crimelord might be after my sorry ass.
No, there was something really wrong with Mariska, and we needed answers now.
There was only one person I asked to call for help.